This Week in Dulture…

Approx 5 minute read:

🦸‍♂️ Weekly monologue: I renovated this newsletter!

🍸️ Hai-ball

🎦 Rocky sucks, again

🟫 2025: The year of mocha mousse

It’s Highball Season

For some odd reason I feel like it’s not right to pound a bottle of whiskey back by myself. Whiskey is a spirt I have to enjoy with someone else, I don’t know…something about not wanting to feel like an alcoholic *shrug*

Whiskey is also a drink I consider to be more of a winter thing - something about the warmness that comes from a neat glass of <insert your whiskey of choice here>. With it basically being winter now it’s become whiskey season. And with the amount of bottles of whiskey I’ve accumulated from not drinking them, I’ve decided to FAFO with highballs.

We all know a highball is basically any mixed drink in a tall glass with some ice but in my mind there’s only one haibōru.

If you’re going to have a highball it must be with Japanese whiskey, this is simply not debatable. And if you’re going to use Japanese whiskey, well you should know your options shouldn’t you? Here are a few that work really well:

Nikka From The Barrel

This is the whiskey I’ve been drinking lately. It’s got this sweet finish to it when mixed with soda water. But even drinking this stuff straight is so smooth. This whiskey has won all kinds of awards and continues to be easy to find, which is rare for top awarded whiskey’s - highly recommend.

The Yamazaki 12

This stuff is so smooth. Just this past October it was awarded the Supreme Champion spirit at the International Spirit Challenge awards. You’ll always see these bottles in duty free - they used to be a lot cheaper than they are now, like under $100 cheaper. That said, if you want a damn good highball, mix this stuff up with ice and some lemon. Chef’s kiss.

Toki Suntory

Last on the list is something you’ll absolutely find almost anywhere (at least I have..). Toki is fantastic tasting and fantastically cheap. The way Japanese whiskey works is basically like the stock market - as whiskeys win awards and become more popular, their price skyrockets. You can get this stuff for under $70/bottle right now in Toronto but I get the feeling the price will go up. That said, this would be the one I’d start with if I wanted to get into highballs, it’s an easy drinker and mixes well with everything.

Not the (Red) One

The thing about Christmas movies is that you’re not supposed to have high expectations to begin with. It’s the time of year where you should be winding down (keyword: should) and just enjoying a cheesy romcom or family drama about getting together around the holidays.

Apparently watching cheesy holiday movies is good for your health too. There’s something about watching other people struggle through the holidays that can put your mind at ease…as you struggle through the holidays too.

So why does The Rock do everything but put my mind at ease??

Like a toxic relationship, everytime I watch a Dwayne Johnson movie I think, “maybe this time will be different?” And like a toxic relationship, it ends up being sh*tty every time.

So I watched Red One anyway.

Conceptually, I thought the film had a lot of potential. On paper the idea of someone kidnapping Santa Claus the day before Christmas and his bodyguard having to rescue him sounded pretty good for a holiday movie. Some good action sequences mixed in with Christmas references, complete with a cast of recognizable A-listers surely has to be decent enough right?

Red One takes forever for the first act to set the tone. I get that they had to give you the context of how Santa’s operation works like a secret FBI base in the North Pole - okay cool, I liked that. But they could’ve kidnapped Santa sooner AND THEN we learn about the North Pole base while they figure out how to find Santa. And at the same time, perhaps there could’ve been a bit of character development for Johnson’s character - I mean I know he plays basically the same person in every movie but still, tell us how you’re a little different this time…just a little!

The action sequences consist of The Rock pushing, punching, and stomping stuff while running around from place to place looking at clues for where Santa is being held captive. Except there’s next to no emotion in the movie. The characters are dense, underdeveloped, the plot takes way too long to get to the point, and The Rock is just annoyingly boring.

I’ve seen better acting from DJ in his Instagram videos talking about how “good” Teremana tequila is. For someone who’s supposed to be the most important person in the world next to Santa Claus for kids, he gave off “bah humbug” as a job description.

In the history of Hollywood there hasn’t been another actor who has been able to hype up a movie as good as The Rock has, only to have it be so poorly done - Fast X, Black Adam, Skyscraper, Baywatch, are just some of the examples of the marketing miracles that take place for his films, only for reality to set in and the film flops. Save yourself the reality check, don’t watch even watch Red One when it hits streaming services.

The Colour for 2025 is…

It’s that time of year where either you’re getting recaps of the year or you’re getting the forecast for the next one. Last week you got your Spotify recap, telling you how much you liked Taylor Swift and Drake. This week you’re getting the colour for 2025.

How much peach fuzz was in your life this year?

According to the Pantone Color Institute, the colour of the year for 2024 was this: